Lead Generation

It has been our experience that effective Sales Prospecting has several elements often argued about between marketing and sales people.

The term “low fruit” comes to mind. “Low Fruit,” or those that are in the current buying season, those that have BANT (budget authority need and timeframe) defined before you call them, and then those looking at your competitors.

Additionally, there is the situation where you have a strong financial play and your offering can save a prospective company money. Sometimes at VO Group, we come across accounts that did not realize your offering existed and that they could save with an offering like yours. Sometimes we need to Provoke the Buyer, or as we say, Provoke the Economic Buyer with your Financial Play. In this case we might not see BANT, or at least “allocated” budget and/or a defined timeframe because they actually were not looking for a solution at least as specifically as your solution is.

Some questions we often ponder:

Is low fruit really the best sales situation?

Is a customer that you have provoked in the buying season? Do they have a budget?

If you find a BANT situation, are you late to the party?

Would you rather be early to the party to set criteria…..if your sales cycle is 6 months or better?

Low fruit, BANT, and those in the current buying season many times are called Tier 1 leads. But are these really the best sales opportunities?

It seems in a perfect world, most sales people would like to be first, not last. But we all know this world is not perfect.